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In
this seminar we will be exploring Ong's idea that Oral
(speech-based) and Literate (writing-based) cultures
are very different from one another. Ong makes the case
that writing is a technology and goes so far as to say
'writing transforms consciousness'. Through this we
will also be considering the effects of representational
technologies on our culture.
| Oral
Culture |
Literate
Culture (Chirography: written by hand; Typography:
printing) |
-
information in the Sound world
- art of memory (memory very important)
- ways of passing on information (story telling,
myth etc.)
- ways of capturing people's attention (use of rhetoric)
- world view rather localised - less emphasis on
individuality
- world understood as being ephemeral
- speech 'streams' - "sound speaks to and from
interiors" |
-
information in the Visual world
- ability to analyse
- ways of passing on information temporally and
spatially
- development of linear plot form (the Novel etc.)
- world view rather globalised - development of
the individual
- world understood as being 'fixable'
- words 'chunk' - the idea of writing objects at
different zooms: letter, word, sentence, book, library
etc. |
Representational
Technologies
- Up to now have tended to 'fix' or 'freeze' the world
- implications of this...
- Linearity
- Non-linear approaches (early and contemporary)
- Notion of 'tranformational effects' of technologies
Some Questions:
* What are the implications of the above for the construction
of narratives?
* What is a 'non-linear' sequence? |
Here is a reading list and links for some
of the other books mentioned:
 Sterne,
Laurence, (1990), 'The
Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy', Oxford University
Press
Published in nine volumes between 1759 and 1766 [electronic
labyrinth article]
 Joyce,
James, (1937), 'Ulysses',
The Bodley Head
First published 1922
 cummings
e.e., (1972), 'Selected
Poems 1923-58', Faber and Faber
*
 Burroughs,
William, (1982), 'Cities of the Red Night', Picador
'Language
is a virus from outer space'
'We must find out what words are and how they function.
They become images when written down,
but images of words repeated in the mind
and not of the image of the thing itself.'
- W.S. Burroughs (1914 - 1997)
Burroughs is famous for the 'cut-up
technique' - see other works including:
'Naked Lunch', the trilogy
('The Soft Machine', 'The Ticket That Exploded' and 'Nova
Express'), 'The Place of Dead Roads' and 'The Western
Lands'.
'At a surrealist rally in the 1920s Tristan Tzara
the man from nowhere proposed to create a poem on the
spot by pulling words out of a hat. A riot ensued wrecked
the theater' (Burroughs from 'The
Cut-Up Method of Brion Gysin').
see also: Tristan
Tzara
*
 Tom
Phillips and 'A
Humument'
For quotations on Words and Language visit:
http://www.just-quotes.com/language_quotes.html
For a fascinating account of a key development in writing
see:
Paul
Saenger's 'Space between Words'
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Please
send further links/references for inclusion to:
p1ramsay@plymouth.ac.uk |
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Teaching
Materials 